Painted Doors
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day five hundred and ninety-eight: Before Brittany moves in with her father, she and her mother go on vacation, just the two of them.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 28th cycle. Now cycle 29!_

**TOP 16, TAKE 2: **_Okay so a couple cycles back, I did my second 'top of Glee at the moment' cycle. Now since I was still in university and such at the time, those were planned a while back, before the second half of the season every started. This made it that by the time that cycle rolled around I realized that some things had changed... Things were added, removed, bumped up... Point is it didn't really reflect where I was anymore. So I decided 'what the heck, I'll do another one ASAP!' And so here we are :) This is my revised Top 16 (of course I HAD to plan before the finale, so there are still a couple things missing like Samcedes, Unholy Trinity, etc, but let's assume they're there ;) They'll get some love in coming cycles ;)) So off we go!  
><strong>Coming in at number nine...<strong>_

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><p><strong>"Painted Doors"<br>Sue & Brittany  
>Sylvesters Series #24<br>Sequel to "Home is where the heart is" / Prequel to "Of two hearts"  
>Following in the "Sylvesters Vacation" set [in Quebec; in Hawaii; in San Diego]<br>(still with me? ;)) **

It seemed so long since they'd gone on vacation. Sure, they had the time they spent together at Nationals, at the hotel, but would this really count as a vacation? Sue was there as Coach Sylvester, and Brittany was there as one of the Cheerios… The last time they had a vacation worthy of the word was… Well, it was so long ago now, or it felt that way. They may have had a few before the routine had become that their vacation had to coincide with the Cheerios' Nationals run, but none of them could compare to the very first. Sue had taken her then-five-year-old daughter up to Quebec to the Chateau Bromont. Even as the years went on, every so often they would remember it, and it would bring them the happy memories without fail.

But then there was this year. They'd already gone to Nationals; that was in the past. But it was summer now, and before long Brittany would begin sharing her home time with her father and his family. The concept of it all had gone and put strain on her relationship with her mother, but in the end they had mended. And before they could face what was up ahead for them, Brittany had made one simple request that the two of them go on vacation, together, just them… No competitions, no Pierces… just two Sylvester women. There really was no need to stop and think where they would go.

They'd put their suitcases in the trunk, and they were on the road. They probably could have flown, but they had driven the first time, so Brittany had insisted they needed to drive again. Sue had accepted, on the condition neither of them mentioned anything that involved their lives back in Lima, which Brittany had more than happily agreed to follow. Instead, she led a bit of a lesson in French, with her nose deep in the small travel dictionary she had bought. She was flunking Spanish, but she could at least manage the few sentences she learned on the car ride… at least she'd have those, if she could just be put in the proper scenarios to be able to use them…

She put the dictionary away when they started getting close. Even years later, there were some things she still remembered vividly… The small shop in town, where their bus had stopped, the long road leading up to the hotel, and then the place itself, hanging up there with mountains overhead… she felt like a kid again, and even Sue couldn't help but smile a little.

They finally reached the front entrance, and from there Brittany seemed to hang on to her 'Bonjour' with everything she had. And as their vacation started, some of it felt like it was determined to mirror the 'perfect memory' of years before. Their room wasn't ready when they arrived, so they sat to wait, on the same couches they'd done a little over a decade before. Back then, Brittany had fallen asleep in her mother's lap, but this time they sat, both of them awake. Sue decided to tell her about the time when she had fallen asleep there, how the people going by would tell her what a beautiful little girl she had, and how she would give a nod of her head – of course, she did. This made Brittany smile. Then she told her how, once their room was ready, Sue had carried her up there, placing her on the bed, which was huge with just her little self on it, so she could keep sleeping while her mother unpacked. Brittany just remembered waking up on that bed, like she'd fallen asleep in one place only to awaken in a strange and mysterious new world.

When their room was ready, they got their key cards and, one short elevator trip later, they found their room and entered. To Sue it looked about the same as she remembered, with some minor changes from the years but overall the same. For Brittany it was a whole other experience. The last time she'd been in this room – or one just like it – she had been shorter, smaller… now the perspective was all brand new to her eyes… And when Sue looked back, she found her crouching at the ground, looking around.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Brittany got back up, dusting herself off.

"Nothing," she promised, moving to sit on the bed. She laid back on it… It didn't seem so huge anymore… It didn't matter though: they were back, and they were on vacation. And the first order of business, after unpacking, was to revisit their favorite spot back in the day: the indoor pool. The last time they had not left the premises of the hotel once during their whole stay, and this time would be no different. They didn't even need to check; they knew the outdoor pool's water would be just as frigid as it used to be, so they would stick to the indoor one. This one had something the outdoor one didn't have: the view up above, the colorful shutters and the flower boxes…

It was almost distracting, the way her daughter was attracting some very different looks from the ones she got the last time… She'd been a sweet little girl before, but now she was all grown up, and her fingers itched for her bullhorn, Lima Sue threatening to come out whenever she'd catch some guy staring a little too long. But then she would tell herself this was not what they were trying to do here, that they weren't supposed to be anything else but mother and daughter having a good time together, before they could go home and help Brittany make the transition to living part time with both her mother and her father.

"Why can't we go to the pool?" Brittany would ask the next morning, as she stared out her window, down at the water below. Sue looked up at her, speaking the supposed truth.

"Oh, I'm afraid the hotel lost our swimsuits, so now we can't go. But that's alright, we can make due. How about a movie?" she picked up the remote. Brittany looked back at her, tempted.

"Can we get snacks?" she asked, eyes angling for the mini bar.

"Sure, alright. Why not," she consented, and Brittany's face broke into a grin as she opened the small refrigerator and pulled out a few things which she carried to the bed, sitting side by side with her mother. They would watch one movie, then another… it would become that, except for lunch, dinner, this was almost all they would make of their time there… and, really, it was just what they needed.

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******

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><p><strong><strong><strong>PS: I'm going to work to find a way to make a list available of the various series, I just need to find a way to make the link available, since this site seems to have an issue with putting links to stuff ;)<strong>****


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